Sticky Pasta

[stscam]

I'm planning to offer store-made pasta in the new retail section of my bakery. We're going to do a basic egg, a spinach and a tomato basil. The plan is to make sheets, then cut them at the counter for the customer. Problem is - the cut pasta is sticking to itself and doesn't always come apart when put in boiling water; some of it clumps. We tried 100% semolina and 50% semolina - 50% all-purpose. We've tried chilling the pasta before cutting, using lots of semolina when sheeting and cutting, but nothing seems to work.

We'd love to hear thoughts about how we can improve our product.

Cheers,

[MobyP]

I've had problems with this in the past as well.

How about a drier mixture - i.e. standard one egg to 100g - and then allow to dry to 10-20 minutes before cutting so it starts to become leathery. Douse it well with the semolina before folding, cutting, bundling.

[Toliver]

This questions seems famliar and I think was asked in another recent thread but I can't seem to find it.

Here is a past discussion about pasta that might or might not help until someone can come in and contribute a solution.

[Malawry]

When I cut pasta, I toss it with cornmeal. This helps to keep the noodles separate. The cornmeal falls away to the bottom of the pot when I boil the noodles. I have successfully kept fresh egg pasta for a couple of days before boiling with no stickage and no cornmeal in the finished dish.

(Caveat: This does mean you have to fish the pasta out of the pot rather than dunking the contents of the pot, water and all, into a colander when the pasta is complete. If you use the colander technique you'll deposit the cornmeal right back on the pasta!)

[slkinsey]

Drier pasta. That is the solution. Drier pasta and a dusting of rice flour.

[ingridsf]

Aside from the pasta itself, make sure the water is liberally salted. Salt, I believe, inhibits starches from being released. Might help.

[slkinsey]

I think the problem is not so much that the pasta sticks together while it is cooking (this problem is most effectively solved by using a larger volume of water). Rather, it seems that the uncooked pasta sticks to itself and then does not un-stick once it is dropped in the water. For this, the only truly effective solution I have found is to use a drier dough -- a "pasta drying rack" can help as well, simply because the strande of pasta are not in contact with one another when they are hanging on the rack.

Also, responding to the original post: I would recommend using zero percent semolina. I assume you're using a special pasta machine to knead and sheet the dough? You should be able to make a much dryer dough if you're using a machine, and sticking really shouldn't be an issue. Also, how are you cutting the sheets of dough and how are you preparing the cut dough for transportation to the customer's home? A sheet of dough ready to be cut shouldn't be sticking to itself.

[Suzanne F]

Another possibility for drying is to simply lay the sheets of dough out on towels on sheet pans. (That's what Marcella Hazan prefers to drying racks.) An advantage is that you can keep the sheets in a speed rack, and the whole thing will have a relatively small footprint for the variety of pasta sheets you stock. And you can always cover the sheets with more towels and plastic wrap if they start to get too dry.

[ellencho]

When I cut pasta, I toss it with cornmeal. This helps to keep the noodles separate. The cornmeal falls away to the bottom of the pot when I boil the noodles. I have successfully kept fresh egg pasta for a couple of days before boiling with no stickage and no cornmeal in the finished dish.

(Caveat: This does mean you have to fish the pasta out of the pot rather than dunking the contents of the pot, water and all, into a colander when the pasta is complete. If you use the colander technique you'll deposit the cornmeal right back on the pasta!)

I do pretty much the same thing except that I toss my pasta with the same semolina that was used to make it in the first place. I've even frozen my semolina tossed pasta and it turned out fine and not clumpy after I boiled it.